The Impossible Daughter
by Bitty Bella
Summary: Here's Tori Worthings, the impossible daughter of the most high goddess. Tori's heritage is known to three people: herself, Aaron Stride, the fiery and vengeful son of Ares and Cameron Jackson, the son of the two greatest heroes of their time: who also just happen to hate her mother. As Tori struggles to keep her heritage a secret at Camp Half-Blood, she is in way over her head...
1. Chapter 1: Tori Worthings

"You're special."

Every child hears that statement multiple times through their growth. It is a reassurance of worth, and a sign that you stand out. Your differences make you something greater. But it's a lie. Special is a candy-coated word for "freak". Parents lie to their children to make them feel better… mine lied to protect me.

Up until the summer of my sophomore year, I wasn't anything important. I was "special". I was the jinx. Rumors and disaster flanked me everywhere I went, in every town, in every school.

Academia Boarding Institute on the Upper East Side of Manhattan was no exception from my proceeding reputation. I suppose the only good part about having a bad reputation is that the right people stay away from you: then your world gets smaller and more manageable. When I'd started in September, immediately I could tell who I could talk to, and who I could not. The ladder category was significantly larger than the first. I managed to stay quiet: for once, I didn't have one of my infamous accidents. Those accidents usually consisted of "stolen property" that manages to appear in my possession without my doing, breaking scholarly artifacts and other events of the sort. The accidents _always_ resulted in expulsion.

I really, _really_ tried that year. I stayed small and unnoticed: I was just another girl in the uniform skirt and blouse, weaving her way through the halls. My plainness had never bothered me, because it helped me fit in. My face was unadorned, a normal nose and pale lips, a square jaw framed by curling brown hair that fell to my shoulders and my entire face and body peppered with freckles like someone had upturned a salt shaker full of them on me. My only feature that ever caught people's attention in the slightest was my eyes. They drifted in an unearthly void between green and blue, drawing people's eyes to me and holding them there. My solution was to keep my eyes to the floor and not be a bother. The dominant part of me wanted to hold my head higher. The funny thing was, it wouldn't look out of the ordinary if I did. Maybe it was because of my reputation, but people did respect me. They didn't like me, they weren't friendly to me, but I wasn't bullied by my peers. I was just distanced. But that helped me, I think. At Academia, I was ignored. That didn't make me a target to someone's cruel jokes. I managed to stay there, to avoid conflict and stay unnoticed. After a few months, I'd even made friends with Bayliss McCoy, a tall, gawky, awkward sophomore with glasses thicker that a two-by-four. He was just as eager to get out of high school as I was, and we quickly fell in together. He had a perpetual crush on Hadley Groffmore, the tall, perky, dark-haired girl who made the school uniform sexy. It was sad, really, because Bayliss really, _really_ couldn't shake his crush. But if he was infatuated with Hadley, it meant there wasn't any room for a romantic relationship between me and him, and that was fine by me. So my sophomore year, I ducked around corners and hid in the library at lunchtime. I saved Bayliss from trouble and the occasional bully with a hard look from my ethereal eyes. I thought that maybe just maybe if I could get through a year at the same school, my father, Jim Worthings, would stop looking at me like I couldn't be helped.

My dad was the owner of a couple ranches in upstate New York. With help from some of his friends out there, he was able to manage them. I was shipped off to the city, where I couldn't trip over anything too important. Along with his ranches, my father ran a small but stable trinket shop, tucked away in the smaller-than-a-mustard-sea town of Victoree. Of course, it wasn't called a "trinket shop" to all. It was more of a little gift shop, but a classy one. He sold mostly stained-glass boxes and glass-blown ornaments. Little stuff that was really popular with young couples looking for wedding favors for their small-town wedding. He said that he met my mother in that shop. She walked in one day, all business, looking extremely out of place in the middle of New York, simply to look for something "elegant" to get for her friend for her wedding (Who goes all the way to Victoree to get a wedding gift?! Honestly.) He'd shown her a variety of things, but she'd left empty handed. The next day, she came back, again looking for a little gift. He'd shown her all different types of things, then she'd left angry. The third day, she came back again, apologizing for her temper, and asking to "make it up to him."

Well, you can only guess what happened from there…

My parents were married, in a sense. After three weeks, they just did a little Vegas-style wedding on one of my dad's ranches. And after three days, my mother disappeared. Completely, utterly, definitely gone. She didn't take a car or leave a note. My father called the police, thinking she was kidnapped. Nine months later (oh nine months, how classic) she came back with… me. She hadn't been kidnapped (mom-napped?) she'd left. She'd hidden away. Away from my father. She put me in my father's arms, kissed him softly on the forehead and vanished forever. I can only assume she caught a train, or took a car somewhere, but my dad didn't give any more elaboration further than _she vanished_. I was left with my father…

I'm not bitter. I'm sort of glad my mother didn't stick around- not that I didn't want a mother, it's just that from what I've heard of her, she must have been bi-polar or something of the sort. I don't think I would have done well growing up around that. But sometimes I did wonder: _where is she now? _She wasn't dead- my father said that much. But I just wanted to meet her- just once. Just to see…

Little did I know at the time that I was going to find out exactly who my mother was- and I would wish I never found out.

My name is Tori Worthings and this is the only story that I have worth telling.


	2. Chapter 2: The Seeker

**Hey there! So here's the second Chapter of my Camp Half-Blood FanFic The Impossible Daughter! Settings and characters derived from Rick Rioriden's books I do not own! **

**Okay so we get just a teensy bit of action in this one so read on! In the next few they're be a little more content so get ready! Enjoy! Please review!**

For the sake of getting this show on the road, I suppose I'll skip to the day it happened- because quite honestly, I doubt you'd want to hear about my life at Academia Boarding Institute. It was just a normal school with normal kids who slept in normal dorms and went to normal classes. It was one big _normal_ fest. And it was so freaking boring.

Of course I didn't mind; boring was my turf. I could blend with boring. Once things started getting hectic… people would turn to me as if by gravity. And _that_ would be the biggest disaster of all.

May 27th. All 300 sophomores were in their separate class halls, taking their final exams. I, personally, was in the Literature Hall, poring over a test completely about The Great Gatsby and trying not to act too pleased. I knew for a fact that Hadley Groffmore hadn't read the book and she was sweating considerably. I'd read the book backwards and forwards. Multiple times. I guess that's what being friends with Bayliss McCoy is like- you spend your Friday nights in his dorm, reading while he playing videogames or watches Doctor Who reruns on BBC. So I was done with my exam twenty minutes early. A normal girl would be daydreaming about Jared Ajax who was sitting down in the first row. But not me. I was worrying. I was worrying about my father. He'd called yesterday, seeing how I was doing, if anything interesting was happening. I told him the same thing I'd always say to keep him _happy._

_I'm good. I emailed you a copy of my report card- I brought my English grade up by another .6% _(English was always an accomplishment considering I had dyslexia) _Bayliss is doing great, can't wait to see you. Love you._

And that was that. It was all I ever told him. I couldn't tell him that I hated boarding school, that I wish I could just go back to living on the ranch with him…. But how could I tell him that? And besides, my father was hell-bent on making me go to Academia- there was not getting out of it when Dad had a say in it. The funny thing was that though Academia wasn't my ideal school, it felt different there. I felt more… secluded, in a way. And it was three days until I could officially say I'd managed to stay at a school for an entire year.

But life just hates me like that, so the impossible happened.

I'd just finished looking over the multiple choice section of the exam when the loudspeaker crackled to live over our heads.

"This concludes our allotted testing time. Please close your test and proceed to pass the exams to your professor."

I shut my test, thankful that I could _finally_ go to lunch. Bayliss had been bugging me about watching another British show he'd dug out of the bucket so I expected another bombardment in the cafeteria.

I hoisted my black back-pack up on my shoulders, not following the stupid and ineffective "one-shoulder" trend. People didn't even notice me as I weaving in and out of the rows and stumbled into the hallway, the corridor a rush of cool air after testing. I let the current of students sweep me towards the cafeteria, breaking off when I saw Bayliss looking exceptionally awkward by the back windows.

"Hey, you." I said, poking him on the shoulder to get his attention. "How was the history exam?"

Bayliss thought for a moment, "Historical." He concluded.

"I profound synopsis." I said sarcastically, shoving him lightly on the shoulder.

He glanced over at Hadley Groffmore as she strolled by, her blonde hair trailing behind her like a cape. She was talking up some new girl; I assumed she must be just coming in to check out the school for next year. The girl was taller than even Bayliss who stood 6'2". She was sickly skinny, her bones practically protruding from her skin as if she had no meat on them. She obviously dyed her hair black; _no one_ could naturally have shoe-polish colored hair. She wore the uniform loosely, as if she'd gotten the wrong size.

"Who's that?" Bayliss asked.

I shrugged, "Dunno," I couldn't take my eyes off the girl, "She must be shadowing Hadley or something…"

"She?" Bayliss asked, "I', talking about that kid, there." he pointed in the opposite direction.

I whipped around, scanning the sea of students until my vision focused on an unfamiliar boy. He too was tall, however he was healthy and muscular. He had a head of golden brown hair that crept down his neck like he was in need of a haircut. "Did they get back order on the uniforms?" I asked, looking at the boy's too-small uniform. Girls whispered and giggled as he walked by- he was extremely attractive, yeah, sure, but who was he? He didn't seem to be shadowing anyone in particular. In fact he stalked the halls with absolute purpose, like he had a mission. He didn't even carry a backpack.

Bayliss shrugged, "How should I know?" he turned away, losing interest. "C'mon, Tori, you can goggle at the cute guys later." He tugged on my arm.

"I was not goggling!" I protested.

Bayliss patted my arm, "Sure, Tor." And dragged me into the cafeteria.

My last exam of the day was Algebra: I wasn't particularly good at the subject; the long problems made it hard for me to focus. As if living with dyslexia wasn't hard enough, I got to juggle ADHD along with it! Yay. But it hardly mattered. It was my final exam of the entire year; it was the final challenge before I could say I had stayed here for a year.

About half way through the exam, I got that tingling feeling on the back of my neck. You know, the feeling like someone is staring at you, boring holes into your skin? I turned, but everyone was simply doing their test. As I turned back, I saw the sickly-looking girl staring right at me, sitting in the far back, away from everyone else. _Strange. _I thought,_ Hadley isn't in this class._

A crackle went over the loud speaker and I jumped, startled, looking back to the front of the room. "Victoria Worthings, please report to the front office."

Forty other students all turned back to stare at me. I hesitated, but the professor motioned for me to go, saying I could finish my exam in the allotted grace period afterschool. It's easy to say I was a little pissed; who wanted to stay after on one of the last days of school? I closed my exam and handed it to my professor, picking up my bag and slipping out the side door. A dozen scenarios ran through my head; was my father okay? Did something happen? Had another "accident" occur without my knowledge?

I worried all the way through the halls, down the main staircase and to the front office. I slipped through the glass door, the air conditioning hitting me like a wind storm. I shivered. It was even colder in there than usual. I looked around, "Hello?" I called out, "Is anyone here?"

"Yes."

I jumped, startled. I whipped around and saw Ms. Donnel the secretary stood in the doorway.

"How did you-?"

"Victoria Worthings." Ms. Donnel said monotonously, "You are here."

I blinked, "Uh… yeah. I'm right here. Is everything okay? Did my father call?"

Ms. Donnel laughed humorlessly, her whole torso jerking with each nonchalant 'ha'. "No. You are here for me."

I took a step back, confused. Any moment now Ms. Donnel would laugh and tease "You looked so scared, Tori!" but she didn't.

I looked around, looking around for anyone who might know what in the world was going on, but Ms. Donnel just began walking toward me, limply, with heavy steps like her legs were made of stone.

"Ms. Donnel?" I asked, backing up, "Are you okay?"

"So many- complicatioins." She stutters, flinching. She tilted her head back an forth, shaking her body as if she was uncomfortable in her own skin.

Then I noticed what she looked like. Ms. Donnel had always been skinny- a slender women. But not like this. Here she was so skinny I could see her bones- just like that girl that was shadowing Hadley.

"Ms. D?" I asked again, starting to panic.

"It'll all come in good time…" she shuttered, "Almost…"

As I watched, her face shrank down to the bones, like all the fat, muscle and blood had simply vanished. Ms. Donnel exhaled. "Better." She sighed.

"What- what just happened? Ms. Donnel?!" my voice rose to a shriek.

"Shh, shh, Victoria Worthings." Her crooned, "Stay silent. I only wish to see…" she came forward, no longer stuttering in movements.

I jumped away from her touch, "Ms. Donnel!" I yelled.

"I am not Ms. Donnel, you ignorant child!" Ms. Donnel- or apparently _not_ Ms. Donnel sneered. "I simply was in need of her body. But now yours will do- yes, a demigod," she sniffed, "Mmm. Blood. The immortal blood runs within you."

"What? Don't-don't touch me!" I shrieked. "Who are you?!"

The body of Ms. Donnel shuddered, "I am the Seeker, Victoria Worthings. And you are the sought."

And before my eyes, Ms. Donnel's skin began to shred, white claws- bone, I realized, sprouting from her fingers and her skin, peeling away until all that was left was a skeletal frame- no longer human.

And it flew at me.

**Love it...?**

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**Hoped you enjoyed! Please review! Everything helps! **

**I plan to update up to twice a week, sometimes more or less. If I only do one chapter it'll be really long, I promise!**

**Hang in there because next chapter *gasp* we meet Aaron Freaking Stride. (**fangirlin'**)**


	3. Chapter 3: The Son of Ares

At a time like this, no one thinks clearly. Adrenaline engulfs you, making your heart pump and your stomach clench. You feel visceral, like you're on the edge of a cliff and you can fall, or you can fly. Your body shuts down and your instincts take over.

Apparently my instincts are drunk or stupid or both because did I scream bloody murder in the hopes that someone would come and help me?

Of course not! I did the Tori thing. I ran.

The skeletal creature that called itself the Seeker flew at me, but I threw myself sideways, sliding over the front desk and dropping behind it, scrambling backwards on my back as the seeker lunged onto the desk, overlooking me like a lion and its prey.

"You cannot hide, demigod!" it screeched. It sniffed the air. I realized that it didn't have eyes. It couldn't even see me on the ground- it was going completely by scent. "Let me see you, daughter of immortals."

Naturally, I had no idea what it was going on about, but was I going to stick around to ask it? Nope. I leapt up from my scramble and darted across the office, shrieking once as I heard the crash of movement as the Seeker advanced on me. I felt myself searching: searching for something that wasn't there. I wasn't looking for a way out- I was plotting one.

My vision came in clips, but I felt as if I knew exactly what I was doing.

Bookcase, door, open, lock, move, desk, dig, papers, computer, smell… I sniffed the air of the vacant principal's office, feeling the locked door shudder against the weight of the Seeker. It smelled of lavender. My eyes darted across the desk and I found it: a tall white bottle of lavender perfume. I grabbed it, unscrewing the top. I then grabbed a football trophy that sat on the shelf above the desk, weighing it in my hands. Swallowing hard and watching the door splinter, I gripped my weak weapons.

As the door burst open, I threw the bottle of perfume, the liquid flying from the white container and splaying onto the skeletal face of the Seeker. I watched for a repulsed second as the liquid ran through the bones of the creature, dripping down the spine and through the ribs. The Seeker bellowed with rage, roaring for vengeance as I darted around it, bursting back into the main office and throwing the trophy into the torso of the creature, cracking the rib bones. The better part of my brain took over; "_Help!_" I screeched. Where was the nurse? The vice principal? The guidance counselor? I darted to the door, banging on it and jiggling to lock- it wouldn't budge. "_HELP!_" I screamed again. _Someone_ had to hear me!

"Demigod," a raspy hiss emitted from the principal's office. I clamped a hand over my mouth. It couldn't see me and I masked its sense of smell with the perfume, but my screams gave it a direction to travel in. I could yell again, but the Seeker would find me in an instant. I crept to the right, away from the door, hiding next to the bookcase. It was horrible: I could hear the Seeker tripping over desks and papers and hear it murmur my name and talk of immortal blood. _Someone help me_, I pleaded silently, _someone, please, help me._

"Your mother is masked, yes, I can sense, but you… you are something all of your own…"

I gasped- just slightly, but it was enough. The Seeker hurtled towards the sound of my breath and I had to throw myself sideways to avoid getting impaled by those long white claws.

The Seeker was on the move again, crashing around, coming towards me, closer with each staggering step-

"_Level 6!_" a voice suddenly boomed from the doorway.

Both the Seeker and I whipped around, looking towards the door where a boy stood- the boy that Bayliss pointed out to me- looking at a small, sleek black device in his hand and grinning like a mad-man. _Level 6? _Was he seriously _playing a game_ and not noticing the humungous skeletal creature only meters away from me?

"I knew I'd find you!" he beamed at the screen, strolling into the office.

"_Son of War_," hissed the Seeker, turning towards him.

The boy looked up, his eyes widening at the sight of the Seeker. "Oh shit," He cursed, jumping back, "Catch!" he yelled, throwing the black device into my hands. His hand moved towards his pocket and as the Seeker barreled toward him, he drew something from his pocket, something I couldn't see, and when he brought his hand up he was holding a long wooden pole topped with an enormous silver head, pointed and glinting. It was an _actual_ spear. Like from a story book or something. A legitimate spear and this kid was swinging it around like he knew what he was doing. _Where the hell did that come from?_ I thought as my eyes widened. The Seeker and the boy were caught in a deranged combat, the Seeker slashing with its skeletal claws and the boy's spear wielding wildly. He had a look of fierce determination on his face, his eyes alight with… glee? The boy looked like he was having the time of his life, parrying the claws and ducking swings.

"Hey kid!" he yelled, never taking his eyes off the creature, "the _lowre_, press the button!"

I stared at him, bewildered. He risked a glance at me, "The thingy you're holding! Press the button!" he yelled, exasperated as he flung himself over the office desk and the Seeker jumped to follow him. I looked at the object in my hands. It was small, about the size of a smart phone. In fact, it could very well have been mistaken for a cellphone, however the screen was smaller displaying a green-lined grid with blinking red dots. Each dot had a number over it- all of them were zero except for three blinking dots on the top left corner. One dot had a six above it, one had a five and another dot was pure white, flashing like a warning. There were various buttons- I didn't know which to press.

I heard another crash and looked up to see the Seeker pin the heavy wooden desk atop the golden-haired boy. He yelled in pain and the Seeker turned on me, shaking its skeletal head. "Demigod," it hissed, "your clever trick no longer blinds me."

I swallowed as it advanced, slowly, because now that the boy's threat was gone, it had all the time in the world. The boy struggled under the weight of the desk, trying to reach his spear which had spun away from him across the room. I stared into the haunting face of the Seeker.

"I will see you," the Seeker hissed, "I will know you."

"_No!_" I screamed, throwing myself away from it, behind the lost-and-found table. I landed in a large pile of flimsy, soft pale paper. It was softer than paper, though… it was a mound of shredded fabric, mixed with longer strands of… hair.

I thought of Ms. Donnel and her flesh peeling off of her…

_Flesh. Hair. The principal, the vice principal, the nurse, the secretary… _I thought of the sallow-faced skinny girl in the Algebra Hall and screamed. I didn't try to contain it, I screamed long and hard, desperately.

The Seeker drew back it's claws and as it's talons swung down, a wind whipped through the office. I looked at the boy, but he looked as bewildered as I. We watched as the wind collected in front of me, forming before me in a blue mist, it's vapor protecting me from the Seeker's advances. For a moment, when I looked into the mist, I saw the outline of a woman in a long gown, her arms spread to shield me, her shape forming like fabric against a body. The Seeker feel back, "_Impossible!_" It screeched, wailing. Then it began to disassemble, the bones cracking up and down its body and crumbling before my eyes as the blue vapor blew over it. "_NO!"_ it roared, "_NO!_"

As the last of the Seeker dissolved into dust, the blue vapor vanished before my eyes, leaving me with nothing but the bones of Ms. Donnel.

My breathing was horrible and heavy, I sat, gasping, sobbing, rolling out of the shredded pile of… of flesh and standing crawling away from it, wiping my arms and legs, trying to just _get it off_.

"Hey, hey." The boy struggled against the weight of the desk. He tried to soothe me, "Hey, it's going to be all right. Stop- stop, it's not on you. I can get you out of here. You just need to help me get this thing off of my legs- kid, _I can help_."

I gasped for air, holding my head. I wiped by ears, taking slow, deep breaths, trying to block the shredded flesh from my mind.

"Hey. You're okay. C'mon, kid."

I got up, walking over to the desk, poising myself over the frame and securing my hands beneath the side. "Okay." The boy said, getting ready to lift, "One, two… three!" we both struggled with the weight of the desk and the boy slipped from beneath it, rolling up into a crouch and dropping the desk. I fell back, breathing heavily.

"Hey, kid-"

"My name is not kid!" I yelled. "Stop- don't touch me!" I slapped his helping hand away. I got up and darted to the door, pulling on the handle. "_Help!_" I screamed to the locked door, banging on it.

The boy sighed, "Throwing a tantrum isn't going to help." When I still didn't stop banging, he walked over and grabbed my wrist, yanking me away from the door. "Look with your _eyes_. What do you see?" he pointed to the knob. A faint gray glow surrounded the knob, like a fog. "Look, see that? It's charmlocked. That's not going to open for days by mortal power. We need to get out of here, though- the _Cupitor_ might have phoned a friend."

I looked at him, bewildered. He held out his hand. "Where's the _lowre?_ Kid, c'mon, we don't have all day. Where's the thing I threw to you?" he demanded.

I swallowed, pointing over to the fleshy pile. Without emotion, the boy stalked over to the pile and picked up the small black device- the _lowre- _and flicked off pieces of flesh. "And next time, when I say 'press the button', listen to me, will you?" he snapped, "a move like that could have gotten us killed."

Had it been under normal circumstances, I would have snapped right back at the jerk. However these circumstance was far from normalcy and the jerk had just saved my life. I blinked, "What was that thing?"

The boy fiddled with the object in his hand, "A _Cupitor_. Soul seekers. Freelancers. They're basically just spirits, but they can embody anything with a bone structure. That one was especially feisty, don't you think? And it seemed pretty hell-bent on getting to you. That's strange. Understandable, though. Once a _Cupitor _goes into you, you die, but they become you, at least for a short while. They know everything about you- even if you don't. It probably just wanted to know who you were: I mean, you're a Level 6 on the scale. that's Big Three numbers, right there. Might be Poseidon or Zeus- they screw up sometimes, you know. But usually the _Cupitor_ work for Hades. This doesn't quite smell like Underworld. It's kind of," he thought, "ashy. Don't you think? Like fire or something." He picked up a handful of the bone-dust and ran it through his fingers.

I stared at him as he brooded over just what 'this' smelled like. What was he talking about? Spirits and levels and- what- Greek gods? "Who the hell are you?" I demanded finally.

"Stride. Aaron Stride. Son of Ares, head of Extraction Team 1." The device in his hand beeped, "Shit. Looks like we had some company, kid-"

"My name's not-"

"Well you won't tell me your name." he interrupted with mock patience, "So I can call you sport, or I can call you kid. Seeing as I'm not a middle-aged father, I think kid is my only option here."

I shook my head, "My name's Victoria- Tori. Tori Worthings. And you didn't answer my question- hey, what are you doing?" I demanded as he pulled a thin black bracelet from his uniform pants pocket and clasped it to my wrist.

"Iris Travel. Still in Beta, but this is an emergency. It might sting a bit, make sure you keep your eyes closed. Should take effect in three minutes."

I blinked at him, "What? Who are you?"

"I told you," he said slowly as if he was talking to an infant, "I'm Aaron. Aaron, Tori. Friend. Capuche?"

"I mean where did you come from? You obviously don't go here-" I looked at his deformed uniform.

"Oh, this." The boy- Aaron- pulled on the blue and green tie around his neck. "I borrowed this from one of your classmates. He's in an upstairs closet in his underwear. Poor kid." He pondered this for a moment, then shrugged. "Well. I'm sure you've been notified I was coming? Did your mortal parent tell you? I would have extracted you sooner but the Cupitor complicated things just a bit." He held his fingers an inch apart.

"I-"

The band around my wrist began growing hotter. "Ouch!" I exclaimed, trying to take it off.

"No you don't," Aaron stopped me, clapping a hand over my wrist. "Okay, eyes closed, hands tight, no puking on the shirt. Ready?"

"What?!"

And I felt the world fall away as I was plunged into a white void of oblivion.

* * *

**What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Please comment!**

**The next chapter should go up later this weekend- maybe Sunday! It will explain in more detail what the monster that attacked Tori and Aaron was and what that blue vapor woman thing was :) anything else I need to elaborate on for you guys? Let me know!**

**They'll be more Aaron and Tori scenes later (it's rated T for a reason...)**

**Stay Classy,**

**~Bitty Bella~**


	4. Chapter 4: Don't Trust Me

**Hey! I'm sorry I haven't updated! School's been a little bit crazy, but this chapters a little longer! We're getting into the thick of it now, and I'll try to update sooner this week! Thanks for hanging in there, lovelies!**

**Okay so here it's just a Tori/Aaron scene, and I explain more about the ****_lowre_**** thingy so yupp!  
Enjoy it!**

Burning.

That's what it felt like. I clamped a hand over my eyes as the white light blinded me, my eyes burning against the flood of absent color.

I could feel Aaron's hand on my wrist, but that was all I was aware of. That and the feeling of being torn away from the ground and being taken into the whiteness.

My feet hit something solid and pain rocketed up my ankle. I stumbled and fell onto cold asphalt.

"Whoops. Forgot to warn you; don't land with both feet!" Aaron's voice came from somewhere above me.

I rolled over, blinking black dots from my eyes, "What the _hell_ was that?" I demanded groggily, still trying to get my bearings.

Aaron (offering no help to me) stood tapping on the little device: the "lowre" or whatever he called it_._

_ "_That was Iris Travel. Transportation via light. The guys back at Camp are still trying to work out the logistics so you only get one ride per bracelet." He bent down and took the black band off my arm. It was smoking. "Yep. This one's toast. Huh. I wonder if it's Iris herself making them break or just the hundred watt rainbows." He shrugged philosophically.

_Transportation?_ I looked up and sure enough, we were no longer in the office. We were out in the lower dormitory plot. From the concrete I could see the school, a half a block away, with smoke trailing into the sky.

"How… how…?"

Aaron frowned at me, "What, never heard of transportation before? Jeez. Your mortal parent must be an older-timer."

"My mortal parent?" I demanded. "What does that even _mean?!"_

Aaron laughed, "You know-" he stopped short, looking at the bewildered stare on my face. "You… you really don't know what I'm talking about, do you?"

"Thanks for the status update, Captain Crazy, but in case you haven't noticed, I'm a half a block away from where I'm supposed to be!"

Aaron stared at me. "So you didn't know what that thing in the office was… at all? Or how we got here?"

"I don't know how you pulled that spear out of your ass either, buddy." I snapped.

He stared at me like I was a whole new species of human. "I know you didn't know about camp but I figured…" he trailed off. "How old are you?"

I gaped at him. "You break into my school, pull an illegal weapon out of thin air, kidnap me, and now you're asking me _how old I am?!_"

"Yes." Aaron said. "Tell me."

"What-!?" I turned in the direction of Academia Institute, ready to run away from Aaron Stride and lock myself in my dorm room, determined to forget _everything_… "I turn sixteen in a week."

Did I know what made me say it? No. But there was obviously a missing factor- somewhere, somehow, something got lost in translation and led me… here. That little mishap- mistaken identity, maybe?- caused me, a perfectly ordinary girl, to wind up teleported on a street corner with a sarcastic, narcissist psycho-path who pulls medieval weapons from his back pocket. Maybe if I told him all he needed to know- if I explained to him that I was completely normal, he would walk away and not look back. But what about the monster? That- that _thing_ still haunted in imprints in the backs of my eyelids.

"That's almost three years overdue…" Aaron mumbled, running a hand through his messy hair. It looked golden in the sunlight, reflecting off his head and giving the impression he was glowing. _A real golden boy_, I thought.

"Overdue?" I demanded. "What am I, a library book?!"

Aaron smirked, "Overdue. Your godly parent should have claimed you by your thirteenth birthday.

Horrible images flashed behind my eyes, threatening the wall I'd managed to put between me and the memories of that one birthday almost three years ago where I'd almost lost everything. With effort, I repressed the thoughts and shook my head. "Did you just say _godly parent_?" I demanded, bewildered.

I know that I should have marched away right then and there, declaring that this boy was absolutely insane and it was all a big misunderstanding. But no. I didn't walk away because somewhere in the back of my mind, that little tiny annoying voice you always try to repress squeaks out _he's right_ and your left wanting to bang your head on the nearest brick wall. I know it sounds absolutely crazy, but what Aaron Stride was saying made sense to me. It was like the answer had been dancing before my eyes. The words slid together flawlessly- _monster, demigod, godly parent, claimed. _I swallowed. "You're insane."

Aaron laughed, "Not the first time I've heard that one, sweetheart." He leaned against the building to our left, looking me up and down with piercing blue eyes. I immediately felt self-conscious. Internally scolding myself for being such a wuss, I stood up straighter, which didn't do much considering I was five feet three inches and he was over six feet tall.

"Stop looking at me like that!" I ordered.

Aaron just raised his eyebrows, "Like what?"

"Like I'm under a microscope!" I exploded. "You're going to explain to me what that _thing_ was, and then you're going to leave me alone!" I took a calming breath. "Look. You've got it wrong, okay? It's all wrong. I was never supposed to be in that office. That- _thing_ wasn't after me, okay? I don't- have a godly parent or whatever. I'm just Tori. _Just Tori._" I swallowed, "So just explain and be on your merry way."

Aaron smiled like I was just the cutest little kitten throwing a tantrum, "But you said I was insane. Are you _sure_ you want answers from a potentially sociopath?"

I glared at him, "Just talk."

Aaron sighed. "Look. I'm not the best at explaining this kind of stuff. That's Chiron- the Camp director's job. He'll explain everything; your parent, the monster in the office. Everything. But you have to come with me."

I laughed. "I don't think so."

"You don't have to think so, kid."

I gaped at him, "Are you threatening me?"

"Ohh, feisty. You might end up being my half-sister." He mused.

I jumped, "Your what?"

"Hold on tight, kid." Aaron winked and before I could protest or run, he snapped another thin black bracelet around my wrist and I was once again ripped away into the colorless void.

This time wasn't as bad.

It was still pain-inducing, stomach churning and absolutely positively mind-blowing, however I unconsciously followed Aaron's previous instructions, closing my eyes tightly and falling sideways as I landed to avoid putting weight on my hurt ankle.

I looked around me, flabbergasted. We were no longer in the middle of the city. Gone were the skyscraping buildings, that honking cars, the thin layer of smog that dwindled among the factories. There were no flashing lights or busy streets with pedestrians bustling down the sidewalk. We were surrounded by pine needles, the city asphalt turning to the forest floor, littered with yellowing pine needles and pinecones, dirt making a softer cushion for my hard fall. I sat up, spitting pine needles out of my mouth and looking around me, taking it in. I'd never been in the woods much, save a couple of times when my dad took me camping. Though I'd never been in this far. We were trapped in a wall of trees, the only way out seeming to be the open sky above us, a cloudless blue canvas.

"This is Extraction Alpha 1, I have arrived with the Subject at site 3, please report."

I turned to see Aaron speaking into the small black device; the _lowre,_ as he called it. After a moment of silence, a voice spoke back through the device.

"Stride, calm it with the spy stuff. We'll be there in ten. And _never_ tell me to report again." The voice was obviously female, but she sounded gruff and tough, like the kind of girl I'd always wanted to be; strong and undeniable.

"Oh please, Kelsey, I know the James Bond act turns you on." Aaron said back into the device, winking at me.

The girl at the other end made a disgusted noise and the device emitted feedback as she hung up. Aaron grinned at himself and pocketed the _lowre_, turning toward me.

Since he was offering no explanation, I decided to take matters into my own hands. "What is that thing?" I asked, pointing to his pocket. There were a million questions all trying to force their way out my mouth at one time, but I couldn't wrap my brain around them all at once. I couldn't bear to hear him spout more talk about how we'd… transported… via rainbow… here…. so I decided starting with the small stuff would be better.

"Oh this? It's a _lowre_." Aaron said, twirling it between his hands before holding it out to me.

"That tells me absolutely nothing." I snapped, closing my eyes tight.

I could almost _hear_ Aaron roll his eyes. "Jeez. Okay. Extraction teams get them. _Lowre_s are devices that help us track down other demi-… uh, other _people._ Special people."

There was that word. _Special._ I wasn't special, I was a _freak_.

"Depending on how… _powerful_… these special people are, on a scale of one to eight, a number pops up above their dot on the screen that represents them. You… right, here." he pointed to a red dot on the screen with a small six floating above it. "You're a six. That's…. big. Only a few people get past five. Usually the really powerful people are sevens or eights. The average is two or three for the more ordinary people. I'm a five, but that's pretty out of the ordinary for a son of…." He trailed off. "Creatures like those things in the office turn up as white dots. That's how we know when their close so we can be ready to defend ourselves. Look. Chiron will explain all this. I… I promise. But right now we need to get you to Camp grounds. I don't know how you've survived on your own this long without help, and frankly, there's more than trees in these woods."

He turned and started feeling his way through the pine trees. "What do you mean 'creatures'? And… what you said before, about 'godly parents' and stuff. What did you mean?"

Aaron sighed. "I told you-"

"I'm not waiting for your freaking camp director!" I shrieked. "You're expecting me to trust you, but you won't tell me anything!"

Aaron chuckled and smirked at me. "Kid, if you know what's good for you, you won't trust me at all." And he plunged into the pine needles leaving me no choice.

I followed him in.

*****  
okay, so not that long, but once we get into the thick of the story i'll meat up the chapters! Just keep hanging in there!**

**Please review! Everything helps! Leave any questions you have about anything you're confused about and i'll incorporate them into the story to answer them! just leave them in the comments! **

**Stay Classy,**

**~Bitty Bella~**

**p.s. Expect an appearance by Cameron Jackson in the next chapter or two... he's the son of two veerrry important people :3 *shrieks with excitement***


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